Merck Posted August 29, 2026

Associate Principal Scientist, Health Economic and Decision Sciences

West Point, Pennsylvania, United States of America FULL_TIME
Medical Affairs Principal
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About this opportunity

Job Description

Description

We are a research-driven biopharmaceutical company. Our mission is built on the simple premise that if we “follow the science”, great medicines can make a significant impact to our world. And we believe that a research-driven enterprise dedicated to world-class science can succeed by inventing medicine and vaccine innovations that make a difference for patients across the globe.

We have an exciting opportunity for a new Associate Principal Scientist to join our Oncology health economic modeling team in the Health Economic and Decision Sciences group. The preferred location for this role is West Point, PA; although alternate locations may be considered, including Rahway, NJ; Boston, MA; the UK, and Switzerland.  Hybrid and flexible work arrangements are possible, consistent with local office and country policies.

The Health Economic and Decision Sciences (HEDS) department is part of our Company’s Biostatistics and Research Decision Sciences (BARDS) organization. BARDS is responsible for strategic design and analysis to enable informed decision making in the discovery, development and delivery of our Company’s innovative products, and is a leader in quantitative scientific methodology and its application to enable the targeting, discovery, development, manufacturing, and marketing of drugs and vaccines for the benefit of patients and global public health.   In collaboration with internal and external partners, the BARDS-HEDS department specifically provides strategic and technical leadership to enable patient access, measure and quantify the value of our Company’s products, inform internal and external decisions, and shape methodology and external health policy and practice. This position will focus on health economic modeling for oncology products.

Role

Under the direction of an HEDS Senior Director, the Associate Principal Scientist provides strategic development and use of industry-leading predictive and economic models to enhance our understanding of disease and to quantify and communicate the value of our oncology products to patients, providers, and payers.

Serve as the BARDS HEDS lead for one or more Value and Implementation teams to develop health economic, disease, and predictive models to enable business insights for the product.

Utilize discovery, real world evidence, clinical trial and published data, and publicly available information and tools to provide economic and integrated models to answer key questions in all phases of drug and vaccine development – Phase I through loss of data exclusivity.

Advance the use of integrated quantitative approaches, focusing on economic, disease, and predictive modeling and simulation in partnership with other internal groups and external organizations.

Development and maintenance of health quality global health economic models and tools in-house or in collaboration with external vendors to provide critical business insights and fully demonstrate the value of our company’s products.

Support and training of HEDS models and tools to support country/regional team adaptations and communications with external stakeholders.

Dissemination of health economic data via presentations at congresses and publications in scientific journals.

Work closely with external collaborators (clinical/economic thought leaders, payer/HTA experts, alliance partners) and internal cross-functional teams to ensure that new methodologies, models and advanced analytics are fully utilized for our products.

Maintain awareness of external data, modeling methodologies and IT tools to collaborate across relevant internal stakeholders to enhance our Company's capabilities in health economic modeling, simulation, and data visualization.

Ensure sharing of work product and relevant best practices across our Company's enterprise.

Education

PhD (preferred) or Master’s degree, in Health Economics, Biostatistics, Health Services Research, Actuarial Sciences, Operations Research or a closely related quantitative field

Required Experience and Skills:

Relevant work experience in health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) beyond PhD or Master’s degree

Knowledge and experience in economic evaluation of oncology drugs and interventions

Expertise and solid hands-on experience in the conceptualization, design, development and dissemination of health economic model approaches to enable internal and external decisions

Track record of submissions to Health Technology Assessment bodies and research publications in conferences and peer-reviewed journals

Strong interpersonal, organizational and communication skills with ability to interact with individuals from a variety of disciplines

Understanding of the market access environment and challenges in the US and key international markets

#eligibleforERP

Required Skills:

Data Management, Economic Modeling, Health Economics, Health Economics Evaluation, Health Technology Assessment (HTA), Oncology, Researching, Stakeholder Relationship Management, Strategic Planning

Preferred Skills:

Current Employees apply HERE

Current Contingent Workers apply HERE

US and Puerto Rico Residents Only:

Our company is committed to inclusion, ensuring that candidates can engage in a hiring process that exhibits their true capabilities. Please click here if you need an accommodation during the application or hiring process.

As an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer, we provide equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.  As a federal contractor, we comply with all affirmative action requirements for protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.  For more information about personal rights under the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment laws, visit:

EEOC Know Your Rights

EEOC GINA Supplement​

We are proud to be a company that embraces the value of bringing together, talented, and committed people with diverse experiences, perspectives, skills and backgrounds. The fastest way to breakthrough innovation is when people with diverse ideas, broad experiences, backgrounds, and skills come together in an inclusive environment. We encourage our colleagues to respectfully challenge one another’s thinking and approach problems collectively.

Learn more about your rights, including under California, Colorado and other US State Acts

The salary range for this role is

$156,900.00 - $247,000.00

This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, government requirements, and business or organizational needs.

The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive, if applicable.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits.  Available benefits include medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, including 401(k), paid holidays, vacation, and compassionate and sick days. More information about benefits is available at https://jobs.merck.com/us/en/compensation-and-benefits .

You can apply for this role through https://jobs.merck.com/us/en (or via the Workday Jobs Hub if you are a current employee). The application deadline for this position is stated on this posting.

San Francisco Residents Only:  We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment in compliance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance

Los Angeles Residents Only:  We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance

Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully 

Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company.  No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails.

Employee Status:

Regular

Relocation:

Domestic

VISA Sponsorship:

Yes

Travel Requirements:

10%

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Hybrid

Shift:

Not Indicated

Valid Driving License:

No

Hazardous Material(s):

n/a

Job Posting End Date:

09/21/2026 *A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE  the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.

Requisition ID:R413148

Job details

Seniority
Principal
Function
Medical Affairs
Therapeutic area
Not listed
Location
West Point, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Employment type
FULL_TIME

How this role compares

Computed from every other active Medical Affairs role in our database, not just this employer's listings.

We currently track 379 comparable Principal Medical Affairs roles across 71 biopharma companies.

379Comparable roles tracked
371Currently active
71Companies hiring similar roles
31Countries represented

Salary context

165 of 379 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)

Peers share this role's job function and a matching or adjacent seniority level -- not necessarily the same therapeutic area or country.

This roleSubject $156,900/yr – $247,000/yr
Lowest disclosed · Senior Strategic Medical Writer - Remote · AbbVie $96,500/yr – $183,500/yr
Highest disclosed · Sr Medical Director (Heme Oncology) (Boston, US) · Servier $298/hr – $350/hr (≈ $619,840–$728,000/yr)
Peer group range $140,000 – $673,920 (median $232,750)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 379 comparable roles

United States245
United Kingdom20
India16
Germany11
Taiwan10
Japan10

+ 25 more countries

Seniority mix

379 of 379 peers have a known seniority level

Director210
Senior163
Principal6

Therapeutic area mix

157 of 379 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Oncology64
Neuroscience16
Immunology15
Rare Disease15
Dermatology & Aesthetics12
Vaccines & Infectious Disease11
Cardiovascular / CVRM10
Respiratory8
Gastroenterology5
Ophthalmology1

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How we calculate "similar"

No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.

Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.

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Unmatched or unknown dimensions score exactly the same: 0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.